Elite colleges transform online higher education

In this Aug. 2, 2012 photo, Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, Stanford University computer science professors who started Coursera, pose for a photo at the Coursera office in Mountain View, Calif. This month Coursera announced that a dozen top research campuses have joined Stanford and Princeton universities in offering online courses through its online platform. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
— AP

In this Aug. 2, 2012 photo, Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, Stanford University computer science professors who started Coursera, pose for a photo at the Coursera office in Mountain View, Calif. This month Coursera announced that a dozen top research campuses have joined Stanford and Princeton universities in offering online courses through its online platform. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
/ AP

SAN FRANCISCO  When the Massachusetts Institute of Technology offered its first free online course this spring, Ashwith Rego jumped at the chance to learn from some of the world's leading researchers - without leaving his home in India.

"I never imagined that I would be taught by professors from MIT, let alone for free," said the 24-year-old engineer who works in Bangalore.

From Harvard to Stanford, a growing number of elite universities are throwing open their digital doors to the masses. They're offering their most popular courses online for no charge, allowing anyone with an Internet connection to learn from world-renowned scholars and scientists.

Many colleges have offered Web-based courses for years, but the participation of top-tier research universities marks a major milestone in the expansion of digital learning.

The proliferation of so-called massive open online courses, or MOOCs, has the potential to transform higher education at a time when colleges and universities are grappling with shrinking budgets, rising costs and protests over soaring tuition and student debt.

Supporters say these online courses can lower teaching costs, improve learning online and on campus, and significantly expand access to higher education, which could fuel technological innovation and economic growth.

"It holds the potential for serving many, many hundreds of thousands of students in a way we simply cannot today," said Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education.

Last month, a dozen major research universities announced they would begin offering courses on the online learning platform Coursera, joining Stanford and Princeton universities and the universities of Pennsylvania and Virginia.

The University of California, Berkeley said it would start making online courses available this fall through edX, a competing Web portal launched in May by Harvard University and MIT with $60 million in funding from the two schools.

"I believe it will ultimately revolutionize education," said UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau.

So far students can't earn college credit for the courses, but that hasn't dampened demand.

EdX officials say 154,000 students from more than 160 countries registered for MIT's first online course, "Circuits and Electronics," this past spring. Only about 7,100 students passed the course, but that's still a lot more than can fit in a lecture hall.

More than 120 universities have expressed interest in joining the consortium, said edX President Anant Agarwal, who heads MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

"Our goal is to reinvent education," said Agarwal, who created the first MITx course. "It will dramatically improve the quality, efficiency and scale of learning worldwide and on our campuses."

So far, the new online courses are attracting mostly older workers who want to upgrade their skills and knowledge, but may not have the time or money to attend classes on campus.

The new generation of online courses features interactive technology, open admissions, high-caliber curriculum and the ability to teach tens of thousands of students at once. The universities say the online courses are as rigorous as their campus counterparts.

Some schools, including the University of Washington and University of Helsinki, say they will offer college credit for Coursera courses.